I am trying to import a tab-delimited file into FM 4. It was originally an Excel 98 file which I converted to tab-delimited because FM 4 won't read the Excel 98 file directly.

I have a text field (book titles) with some commas in some records. when I import, these records enclose the resulting FM text field with double quotes upon import.

For example:

Scat, Said the Cat

imports as:

"Scat, Said the Cat"

Why does this happen and how can I prevent or fix it?

This is probably some goofy thing that Excel is doing. It's normal to put quotes around fields when you are exporting as comma delimited (.csv) so that any embedded commas won't confuse the importing program into thinking it's a field break. But, it shouldn't be doing this on tab delimited. You could try exporting in a different format, or else create a calculated field in Filemaker that removes the quotes like this

Substitute(ImportedTextField,"""","")

Export from Excel as comma-seperated. This will put quotes around EVERY field. However the importer in Filemaker should know about this and strip them out again.